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Let's look at Acts 20 for our Bible study this morning. In our continuing series in the book of Acts, we are drawing ourselves to the attention of the Holy Spirit as He speaks to us in verses 25 through 38 particularly this morning. We're looking at Acts 20, verses 25 to 28 as a unit.
We'll take this in several parts, however, as we customarily do, not by intent, but that's always the way it works out. And we've entitled this particular portion, and I think it's fairly obvious what it's talking about and will be to you as we go, but we've entitled it "A Charge to New Testament Church Leaders." Here we have the basics or the priorities of leadership in the church.
Leadership is a very important commodity. There are places today where leadership seminars are offered, and a person can to for a three-day leadership seminar and pay as high as $2,000.00, not including transportation or meals. That's just the fee to be trained. There is a tremendous emphasis on leadership, because anybody in any kind of business operation or in any kind of commercial enterprise or any kind of organization or institution knows that there is a great price to be paid for leadership.
Poor leadership destroys institutions. Good leadership makes them. God is no less but more concerned about leadership. In all of God's Kingdom, leadership is important. Even the angels, you know, are organized. There are principality angels. There are angels called powers. There are ruler angels. There are archangels. God knows that there must be authority and submission in everything, and so there is leadership, even in the angelic world.
As you look at the Old Testament, you find that there are many things in the Old Testament that indicate to us the importance of leadership. We could talk about great Old Testament leaders such as Moses or Samuel or David and others. Leadership is a great commodity, and God has always ministered His Kingdom through key leaders.
In the Old Testament, because of the importance of leadership, God takes a very strong view of inadequate or ineffective leadership. In chapter four of Hosea, in verse 9, God is not only commenting on the sins of Israel but on the sins of Israel's leaders, and He says this: "Like people, like priest." In other words, God says, "I can't expect anything out of the people that I'm not getting out of the leaders. Whatever the leaders are, the people will be." Like people, like priest.
In Isaiah chapter 9 and verses 14 through 16, we find some more indication of God's attitude toward leadership. It talks about, verse, "Therefore, the Lord will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush in one day." God's just going to devastate Israel. "The ancient and honorable, he is the head. The prophet who teaches, he is the tail."
In other words, God's going to knock off all the leaders. "For the leaders of this people cause them to err, and they who are led of them are destroyed." God says he's going to punish the leaders, because they have rendered the people sinful by a failure to lead them into holy patterns.
In Jeremiah 5:31, Jeremiah speaks to the same issue. "The prophets prophesy falsely. The priests bare rule by their means, and My people love it so." In other words, the people are loving the inadequate leadership they're getting. In Ezekiel, again another portion of interest to us in looking at God's view of leadership and the important place it plays.
Ezekiel 22:26, "Her priests have violated My law, have profaned Mine holy things. They have put no difference between the holy and profane. Neither have they shown difference between the unclean and the clean, have hidden their eyes from My Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them. Her princes in her midst are like wolves ravening the prey to shed blood, to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain. Her prophets have dubbed them untempered mortar, seeing vanity and divining lies under them, saying, 'Thus saith the Lord when the Lord hath not said.'" And as a result, the people have used oppression, exercised robbery, vexed the poor and needy, and so forth. And so He indicts the priests, the princes, and the prophets for failure to lead as He would have.
In Matthew 15:14, Jesus made a comment about leaders. He looked at the leaders of Israel, and He said, "They are blind leaders of the blind, and if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." Jesus said people will follow their leaders. Therefore, God puts a premium on leadership. God sets the standard high for adequate leadership, and if God set it high, so did Paul, because Paul was a godly man.
Paul is closing out his missionary journey, the third of his tours in Acts 20. He is stopped because his ship has stopped at Miletus on its way to Jerusalem, and he is hurrying to Jerusalem to get there for Pentecost and also to take an offering, which he has collected for the poor saints there. And he has stopped at Miletus for a couple of days, because the ship stopped there, and while he has the opportunity he sends about 30 miles away to the city of Ephesus and asks if the elders or the pastors of the Ephesian congregation will come to Miletus, that he might spend a little time with some final word.
And, you know, it seems strange to realize that Paul spent three years there, and he must have told them at least at one point or two points or 500 points the same thing that he tells them here, but the reason he grabs this opportunity is because he's so burdened by the absolute necessity of adequate leadership, and so in passing he calls them, and he says, "This is something I must say again to you regarding the priorities involved in your leadership." And so from verse 17 through 38, actually that whole section, Paul gives information regarding leadership in the ministry, in the pastorate, in the work of Christ.
Now, there is a sense in which we have to take leadership as it comes in scripture, and leadership in scripture is a two-sided issue. It is an issue of great responsibility with great joy, and it is an issue of great responsibility with great potential for judgment. Good leaders are doubly blessed. Bad leaders are doubly chastised, because "to whom much is given, much shall be required." And that's a principle that runs right across the board in anything that God is involved in.
For example, in James it says in chapter 3, verse 1, "Not many teachers, brethren, because theirs is the greater judgment." But on the other hand, in 1 Timothy 5:17, it says, "The elders that rule well are worthy of double honor." So you have the double honor for the good leader and the double judgment for the poor leader. Leadership is a tremendous responsibility.
Now the task of the early apostles and of the evangelists was to appoint such leaders in each church. The apostles would go around appointing leaders. They would raise them up. The elders of the church at Ephesus, and when I say elders, I'm saying the same as pastors, as I'll show you in a minute, and they're always as a plurality, never a one-man pastor, always a plurality in the scriptures. But the elders there, the pastors there, had been trained, discipled, matured by Paul, and they had been appointed by Paul, raised up by the Holy Spirit. Paul became aware of who they were and appointed them to pastor the church at Ephesus.
The apostle said to Titus in Titus 1:5, he said, "Now you set the things in order that need to be set in order in Crete and you ordain elders in every city." Pastors in each city were to be ordained by the evangelist or the apostle. So Paul is talking to men that he himself has discipled, and he gives them a charge that really is much bigger than just the scene that you see in Acts 20.
It's a kind of a thing that can be timeless, because what Paul tells these people is just basic stuff to any kind of biblical leadership in the church. And believe me. If the church is the church of the New Testament, and the church is the church of Jesus Christ, it ought to follow the biblical patterns, right?
And I've found this to be true, that if the church does not follow biblical patterns at the point of its leadership, it will never follow them at the point of its laity. It just doesn't happen. Like people, like priest was true in Israel, and it's still true in the church. Real reform in the church, real New Testament revitalization and revival must come at the level of leadership. It must.
Now as we look at this passage, we're going to see not just a word from a man to some people in history, but a word from the Holy Spirit to the church of Jesus Christ throughout history. And so we don't just make these things historical and lock them in the box and throw them away after the time of the writing of Acts, but we say that they are apropos and appropriate to the church today as they were the very second that Paul uttered them from his lips. They give us for all time God's perspective on the role of the pastor and the elder in the church, who are one and the same.
Now as always, the church, like every other dimension of God's Kingdom and His rule manifested on earth, depends upon its leadership. We find that in Ephesians chapter 4, a very familiar passage to us, God desires that the church be built up. He wants the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry for the edifying of the body. He wants unity of the faith. He wants deep knowledge of the Son of God.
He wants the perfect man, that is, the church to be matured to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. He does not want the church to be any more children tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. He does not want the church to be loveless but speaking the truth in love. He wants the church to grow up and increase in love and all of those things.
But before any of that can happen, before the church can ever be united, before it can ever be mature, before it can ever be Christ-like, before it can ever be insensitive or ungullible, if there's such a word, to false teaching, there must be something that takes place prior, and that is this. He gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some teaching pastors for this purpose. In other words, the life of the church, in its productivity and its fruitfulness, is directly dependent upon its leadership.
In 2 Timothy 2:2, a verse which we studied yesterday in our Men's Day, we found that God's design for the church is to teach faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. Therefore, leadership is the priority in the church, and it's a tremendous responsibility, believe me. Now because leadership is so very important, we've got to understand very clearly what New Testament biblical church leadership really is.
First of all, let me tell you what it is not. Turn to Matthew 20 and just a little look at an interesting passage here that I'm not even going to take time to explain in great detail but just to throw at you, but it does give us some very good insights into what New Testament church leadership is not. I heard a fellow give a message on this passage one time and draw out these points, and it always stuck with me.
Matthew 20:20, "Then came to Him," that is to Jesus, and, you see, Jesus had announced His Kingdom, so "then came to Him the mother of Zebedee's children with her sons." Here comes Mama Zebedee, and James and John, and James and John were no, you know, what should we say, inferior people. I mean, they were Class A disciples, but they come along with Mama, and Mama butters up Jesus, "worshipping Him and desiring a certain thing of Him."
So she lays it on a little thick. He said unto her, "What wilt though?" What do you want? He knew. She says . . . and He could tell she wanted something when she didn't even say anything. She says, "Grant that these my two sons may sit the one on Thy right hand and the other on Thy left in the Kingdom."
Now this had been a running argument among the disciples. They had argued the whole time since the Kingdom was announced, for the most part, about who was going to sit in the right spots. In fact, that's what they were arguing about the night of the last supper, when nobody would stoop to wash anybody else's feet, because they would never do that when they were arguing about who was the greatest.
And so this was a little problem, so finally James and John said, "Mama, would you go ask for us?" Real men's men. So anyway, she goes and she asks, and Jesus said, "You don't know what you're asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I shall drink and be baptized of the baptism that I am baptized with?" They say unto Him, "We are able." They didn't know what they were talking about. They had no idea what He was going to go through.
And He said unto them, "Ye shall drink indeed of My cup." All right. You're going to get it, "and be baptized of the baptism that I am baptized with, but to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give. It should be given to them for whom it is prepared by My Father." They didn't get what they want, but they did get what they didn't want. And when the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren. You know why they were mad? Because they got there first.
Number one, leadership is not political power play. New Testament biblical leadership is not political power play. You are a leader in the church rightfully when God has appointed you as such. That's the Father's to give, right?
Second thing...biblical leadership is not dominant dictatorship, either. Verse 25, "Jesus called them unto Him and said, 'You know that the princes of the Gentiles exercised dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority over them, but it shall not be so among you.'" No. New Testament biblical leadership, leadership in God's Kingdom, is not dominant dictatorship, but "whosoever shall be great among you, let him be your...ready for this?...servant." Not dominant dictatorship.
And New Testament biblical leadership isn't charismatic control, either. Verse 27, "Whosoever will be chief among you..." You know, some people just want to be up there and, you know, the implication of chief is the one that everybody looks at and says, "Oh, isn't he wonderful?" Now if you really want to be that, be servant. Be a slave.
New Testament leadership isn't political power play, dominant dictatorship, or charismatic control. It's slavery, service, and I love verse 28, because it lays down the basic commodity of leadership. "Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister and give His life, a ransom for many. The greatest leader that ever lived is a servant." The greatest leader that ever lived was a servant, and He taught us the greatest principle of leadership example. What He was is what we're go be.
Now there's the key. Real leadership is the exemplary life. I am a leader. Honestly, I may have a title of a leader. I am a true leader, a true elder, and a true pastor only as long as you follow what I say and what I do, right? When you don't follow anymore, I'm no leader. I may have the title, but I'm not, and you're only going to follow my words when you can look at my life and see some consistency between what I am and what I say, right?
Paul was able to disciple leaders, not only by what he told them but by what he was. Now that's what New Testament biblical leadership isn't. Let's look at Acts 20 and see what it is. Now in Acts 20, Paul closes out his instructions to the Ephesian elders, and he charges them to order their ministry after the priorities that God has set down.
I know there are people in our congregation this morning who are elders. Some of you are elders here at Grace Church. Some of you are staff pastors, which is the same. Elders can be pastoral elders, laboring in the Word and Doctrine, subsidized by the church, so they can be elders who have outside employment but are responsible for the care of the flock here and leading of the flock, and so forth.
There are elders here at Grace Church. God has blessed us with a marvelous group of I don't even know how many. Eighteen, 19 or so elders God has given us, and probably more of you are elders in the plan of God, and as the days go by and you mature, and the Spirit of God lays His hand on you, and the congregation recognizes that, and the elders see it, you'll be put in the position of leadership, as well.
But there are others of you who are young people who are preparing now. You're going to someday be pastors. You are going to be laboring in the Word and Doctrine. In addition to that, all of us should know the responsibility of those who lead over us, shouldn't we, in order that we might make sure that we pray for them intelligently and pray for them along the lines of what the priorities are and that we allow them to major in those areas. And so the idea of leadership is important to all of us.
Now Paul lays out some priorities for the New Testament church leader, and they were priorities that he didn't talk about only but that he lived in his own life. And beginning in verse 17, he talks to them, and he pointed out...remember last time, from verses 17 to 24 there? He pointed out the four dimensions of the ministry.
First of all, he said, "The ministry toward God is service to the Lord." So the church's teaching toward the lost it's evangelism, and toward myself it's sacrifice. We covered that in detail. Paul says, "I see the ministry in four dimensions: serving God, teaching the church, evangelizing the lost, and sacrificing myself." Now having finished that, he wants to concentrate on the church aspect. He's given the overall picture. Now he zeroes in and says, "Now I want to give you the priorities for teaching the church, for being effective in the church."
But before he launches into that in verse 28, let's look at his summation of verse 25 to 27. He says to them, "And now, behold, I know that you all among whom I have gone preaching the Kingdom of God shall see my face no more." And he says, "I just gave you all the ingredients for the dimensions of the ministry. You know what your obligation toward God is. You're always to remember you're in service to Him, not to men, to Him, for the church you're to teach, to withhold nothing that is profitable."
He said, "For the lost, you're to evangelize, testifying to Jews and Greeks repentance and faith, toward self, to think nothing of yourself, to sacrifice yourself, not to count your life dear at all." And he says, "All these things I not only told you, but all those things I showed you. I did that. I served the Lord. I taught the church. I evangelized the lost. I sacrificed myself."
"Therefore," he says, "I'm now leaving, and you all know that I have gone through preaching the Kingdom of God. You're not going to see me anymore. This is it. It's over. I've given you all the facts regarding the Kingdom of God," and that phrase is a general statement speaking of all of God's operation and God's rule. He'd given them everything.
"Wherefore," he says in verse 26, "I testify unto you this day that I am pure from the blood of all," and what he means by all is all the Jews and Greeks, any class of men. "I have discharged my responsibility to all, to the church, to the saved, for the unsaved, Jew and Gentile. I have done the job. You can't condemn me for being unfaithful," is what he's saying. Why? Verse 27, "For I have not failed to declare unto you all the counsel of God." Paul says, "I have done my job. I finished it. I did it. I fulfilled it."
Now it's interesting that he makes the statement that he does in verse 26 regarding the fact that he's pure from the blood of all men. You say, "Is it true that a leader or a teacher or a pastor is going to be guilty of the blood of certain people?" Apparently, it is. You go back to Ezekiel 33:8, and Ezekiel was told that he was to speak what God told him. God would give him a message, and he would relay it to Israel. And God said, "You better be faithful in relaying the message."
Verse 8, "When I say to the wicked, 'Oh, wicked man, thou shalt surely die,' Ezekiel, if you don't say the same thing to the man, his blood will I require at your hand.'" Now that doesn't mean that Ezekiel's going to be damned. It means Ezekiel's going to be chastised for unfaithful ministry. And Paul is saying here, "I will not be like that warning in Ezekiel 33:8," and I'm sure he had that on his mind. "My hands are clean. I am pure from the blood of all men."
There is a responsibility for every man of God, and he has to recognize the responsibility that if God has committed unto him a ministry, and he doesn't fulfill it, he's going to be chastised for the failure to fulfill it. And I am sure that there are some pastors who wonder why everything in their life seems to go wrong, and when they wonder that, they ought to examine a little more closely whether or not they are really fulfilling the ministry that God has committed to them, because if they're not, then they're under the punishment of the blood of those that they have failed to minister to in the way that God designed them to minister.
Serious responsibility. Believe me. That's what James meant in 3:1 when he said, "Don't hurry into the teaching ministry, because there is the greater condemnation if you fail to be faithful." But Paul says this: "I saw my ministry for what it was, toward God, toward the church, toward the lost, toward myself, and I fulfilled it, and I never failed to declare the whole counsel of God. I did it. Therefore, I release my responsibility. I can walk out of this place and know that nothing is going to be held against me. I was faithful."
Now you say, "Is he saying that out of pride?" Not at all. What he's saying is this: "From now on, men, the responsibility is yours. Make sure that you discharge your ministry in a way faithful, equal to the way I gave you by example." Leaders have great responsibility, great responsibility.
The entire plan and purpose and principle of God is committed to us to be committed to you, and to fail to do that, to fail to give the whole counsel of God is to fail to release the responsibility God has committed to us. We are to teach the whole counsel of God. For a person who fails to teach the whole counsel of God, there is chastisement.
Well, Paul then has given us some pretty clear instruction about the importance of leadership, and as I said earlier, it's double blessing, but it's double chastisement if you fail. That doesn't mean you lose your salvation. That just means that you'll know chastisement, punishment.
Now from this reflection on the general ministry, he zeroes in on one dimension. I told you there were four dimensions. He zeroes in on the idea of teaching the church, and starting in verse 28, he says, "Now in particular, I've given you the general thing, but now in particular let me zero in on your responsibility to the church. You elders primarily are responsible for the church in Ephesus. Now here are your priorities."
Let's look, first of all, just a little thought, and I'll give you the footnote before we get into it. Notice verse 17, the word "elders." That is the word presbuteroy or presbuteros, from which you get Presbyterian or presbyter. Then you notice the word in verse 28, "overseers." That's episcopoi, which is translated "bishop" elsewhere. Then you see the word in verse 28 "to feed." That's poimino. That's the word for pastor. So you have these same guys called elders, bishops, and pastors.
You say, "Why are you making a point of that?" Because that means they're all the same thing. There's no difference in the church between a presbyter, a pastor, and elder, or a bishop. They're all the same thing. I'm all of those. You can either call me Pastor. You can call me Elder MacArthur. You can call me Presbyter MacArthur, but I would like you to call me Bishop MacArthur if you would.
All of those things, all of those things are the very same. There is no difference. They're all the same term. That's why all of this hierarchy that comes in the church where you've got all different levels of all bishops and so forth and so on, it's just not the pattern. There is no difference in the use of those terms here. They're all three in the same passage, speaking to the same people.
Now Paul then is going to speak to these leaders. Those men in the pastorate, the eldership, responsible for the direction of the church, and he gives them five keys to leadership, and I gave them to you on the outline, and we're going to only cover two of them this morning. Five keys to leadership. These are the priorities, so basic, but so important.
Principle number one: Make sure you are right with God. Make sure you are right with God. Look at verse 28. Here he goes. "Take heed, therefore, unto...what's the next word?...yourselves." Let's stop it right there for a minute. The priority begins with you. Take heed unto yourselves. You're not ready to minister. You're not ready to endure what is involved in ministry. You're not ready to face the responsibility of ministry unless you're right with God. This is a basic ingredient in the ministry. It is basic.
In Mark 13:9, just to give you some idea of how the New Testament points this out, Mark 13:9, "But take heed to yourselves, for they shall deliver you up to counsels, and in the synagogues you shall be beaten. You shall be brought before rulers and kings for My sake for a testimony against them."
Now he says you're going to get persecuted. In order for you to endure that persecution, he says, "Take heed to yourselves." In other words, if you're not right with God, you'll never be able to handle what's going to happen. You won't be able to handle it. If you're not spiritually strong, you're in no position.
Also in Luke 21:34, the Lord says, "And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this life and the day come upon you unawares." He says, "You know, the day of judgment or the day of the Lord is coming, and you better take heed under yourself so that you're ready when it happens"...self examination.
Now directly in reference to New Testament leaders the Apostle Paul expressed this to Timothy. In 1 Timothy 4:16, he simply says this: "Timothy, take heed unto thyself." That is a priority right in the middle of everything in the ministry is take heed to yourself. That's character. Take heed to yourself. That's character. Then he says, "and to doctrine." That's creed. Then he says, "Continue in these things." That's conduct. Take heed to your character, your creed, and your conduct. You are the key to your ministry.
Paul even put it a little more bluntly to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:20. He says, "In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but wood and earth and some to honor and some to dishonor." In other words, he says if you have a big house, you've got two sets of china, the fancy stuff for the friends and the outsiders who come in that you really want to have a nice thing for and the rest of the junk that we all eat on. And those are the two kinds. Vessels are unto honor, and some are just unto dishonor everyday stuff.
Now the obvious implication here is that in God's house there are going to be some vessels that God will really honor and that will be used for the greatest tasks. Verse 21, "If a man therefore purge himself from these...and he's talking about iniquity, from iniquity...he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified and fit for the Master's use...listen...and prepared for every good work."
You see, there are some vessels God can use, and there are some that He can't use. Believe me, and I say it simply, there is no ministry for an unholy minister. None. And you may have the title of pastor or the title of leader or the title of elder or the title of minister, but if there's no holiness there, there's no leadership there. There's no blessing there. God is not working through you. You're to be an honorable vessel, sanctified, which means holy, and He says in the very next verse, "Flee youthful lusts and follow after righteousness." God uses holy instruments, people, holy instruments.
Robert Murray McCheyne said, "A holy man is an awesome instrument in the hand of God," and it's true. Paul knew this. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9, he said, "I run that I may obtain the crown." You know, they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. "I run that I may obtain." He says, "I fight not as one who shadow boxes, not as one who beats the air."
And he says, "All the time I do this, I beat my body to bring it into subjection lest myself, in my own preaching, I should become a castaway." In other words, the one thing Paul knew was that the day that holiness ceased to be a part of his life, effectiveness also ceased. That's 1 Corinthians 9:27. I'm only useful to God as long as I live a holy life, as I am yielded to the Holy Spirit, as there is purity in my life. God uses holy instruments. Believe me.
You know, you wonder sometimes how it can happen. You see a guy in the ministry involved in so many, many things, so very active in the church and in all kinds of other things, and all of the sudden some great, terrible moral thing comes into his life. We've all seen this, haven't we? And he's been disqualified. And I've had people tell me, "Well, Such-and-Such used to be in the ministry, but, oh, such-and-such happened, and now he's gone."
And, you know, what happened was simply the fact that there was this whole area of making sure of his own relationship to God that he lost out on. He just began to become an unholy man, and once that happened, he was disqualified. He became a vessel useless, dishonored, and even though he maintained his redemption, because justification is a forever thing, he lost his meaning to the body, to the service of Christ, and became a worthless vessel.
Holiness is the basic commodity in all leadership. It isn't your tremendous charisma. It isn't your powerful, forceful, dramatic, dynamic leadership. It isn't the fact that you've pulled off the right political moves to get where you are. That doesn't qualify you to be a leader. What does is your own holiness in the call of God.
To give you an illustration of this, I only have to turn to passages that are very familiar to us, and that is to the list of the qualifications for New Testament leaders. The first one is in 1 Timothy 3. "If a man desires the office of an overseer...or a bishop or a pastor or an elder or whatever...if a man desires that office, here are the qualifications. He must be blameless." Well, that's a good way to start. Doesn't leave much to say, does it?
Now after that, after being blameless, "he must be madly in love with his wife, temperate." That means a moderate man, not given to excesses. "Sober-minded." That means he orders his priority in a spiritual way. "Good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach, doesn't linger long beside his wine. He isn't violent, not greedy of money, but patient, not a brawler, not covetous, one that rules well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity," for if he doesn't know how to handle his house, how will we ever expect him to take care of the church?
Number seven says, "He must have a good rapport to them that are outside." Now do you find anything in there other than a spiritual qualification? I said to a fellow the other day...he said...we were talking about the church and the fact that the church can never go any higher than its leadership, and we were talking about the problem of spiritual leadership. And I said, "Well, how are people picked for the Board of Elders in your church?" "Well," he said, "it's simple. The ones who have the most money and have the biggest businesses and have shown that they have the most wisdom in worldly matters." And he said, "That's the problem." And, you know, that's the case in many churches, if not most churches?
I think it's a great thing when God blesses these kind of men and prospers them, and that's up to God to do, for it's God who gives you the power to get wealth, right? And that's a blessing, and I'm not saying that all the elders are to be poverty-stricken, either, but what I am saying is that the New Testament never suggests the hint of any kind of qualification that has anything to do with worldly position or money or anything like that or personality or looks or anything. It is always the same. The only qualification is a spiritual one, because this is a spiritual work, and sometimes what would be smartest thing to do in a business sense is the absolute opposite of what God wants, because He works in wondrous ways, and we must step out on faith.
In Titus 1...just in case anybody missed Timothy, He put it in Titus. Titus 1, now here's the qualifications for elders or pastors. They must be blameless...again. That is, the church has nothing against them. You know, that's one of the reasons. You know, some people say to me, "John, do you think that a guy who has had a sin in his past life, maybe he's divorced and remarried, do you think he can still serve as an elder or a pastor of a church, or do you think a guy who's done something very tragic in the past and et cetera, et cetera can still function in a ministry in the church?" And then they always throw up this thing, "What does the husband of one wife mean?"
And my answer is always this. I don't even think the husband of one wife is the issue. I think the issue is the issue of blamelessness, because invariably when you lift up a man to the position of spiritual leadership, if he has a huge blotch on his life, somebody's going to throw that in his face just at the point where he has to exercise authority in that issue. And so it's very important that this man be without reproach, that he be a blameless man who gives off a holy testimony and a holy example that is consistent.
I'm not saying God doesn't forgive, and I'm not saying God can't put such a person who has been restored and who has recovered from such a thing in a position of leadership. I'm just saying that he better not be the kind of person who will be blamed, who has a right to be blamed for something, else that will be thrown in his face when he tends to exercise authority in the same kind of issue in regard to the lives of others.
So blameless is important. That's a holy qualification. Then again, the husband of one wife, which means a one-woman man, and I interpret it to mean he's furiously in love with his own wife...I mean he's not looking around. There are a lot of people who are the husband of one wife physically, but mentally they're all over the place.
"If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children...there's another qualification, believing children, not accused of profligacy...or unruly, for a bishop must be blameless as the steward of God." In other words, you're gonna take care of God's business. You'd better be a godly man, "not self-willed, not hot tempered, not given to wine or lingering beside his wine, not violent, not given to filthy lucre...money...a lover of hospitality, a lover of good." It's one thing to do good, something else to love it. Some people do good, but they don't have much choice.
"Sober-minded, just, holy tempered, holding fast the faithful Word...I like this...as he hath been taught, so that he may be able by sound doctrine to exhort and confute the opposers." This is a man who is a holy man, all of the spiritual qualifications and the knowledge of the Word, and he doesn't just know the Word. He holds the Word. He transmits it into his life pattern.
Paul sums it up to Timothy in a very simple statement. 1 Timothy 4:12, he said this. "Timothy, be thou an example of the believers. You show the world what a holy man is," and he says, "in six areas, in word, conduct, love, spirit, faith, and purity. All those areas are spiritual areas you're to be an example."
All right, then New Testament leadership boils down to the man. Get yourself squared away with God. Be a holy man. And there's a second priority, and we'll just look at this and do the rest next time. The second priority of the man of God, the man in the church position of leadership is that he is to feed and lead the flock...to feed and lead the flock.
See, after your own spiritual care, then comes the care of the flock. I think there are some people who put the care of the flock, in a sense, in front of their own lives. You know, you wonder how a guy, you say, "Well, this guy spends so much time in the church, and Such-and-Such had a terrible problem, but it was right when he was busy in the church. And he was doing this, and he was teaching that, and he was carrying on this, and he was doing that." Sure, he was running around and in some measure trying to care for the flock, but he failed to do the one priority that comes first, and that's take care of himself.
You know what my greatest obligation is? You know what my greatest obligation is as a pastor, as a minister of God? My greatest obligation is to make sure my life is right before God, first of all. Secondly, to make sure I carry out my responsibility toward you. If I'm not right, I'm not going to mean anything to you. And the reason across America and across the world in all kinds of Christian ministries nothing happens is because there are some people in positions, and nothing's happening in their lives.
But secondly, verse 28 says, "Take heed, therefore, unto yourselves." Then it says, "And to all the flock." See? My priority, the priority of anybody in leadership, I don't care whether you're teaching a Sunday School class or whether you're working in a Bible study in a home, I don't care what it is that you're ministering in any function that you do, your second obligation is that ministry. Your first obligation is between you and God. And if that isn't right, all the stuff you do on the other side of it isn't going to make a bit of difference.
Now notice this. He says, "Take heed to the flock...not just the flock, but what? ...all the flock." No favoritism. No. I like the fact that the church is seen as a flock. There's something about sheep that's characteristic of Christians, a little clump of helpless, ignorant, stupid followers. That's us. But that's been an historic term that God has used for His people.
In the Old Testament, you know, in Jeremiah 13:17 and in Zechariah 10:3, God calls Israel "the Lord's flock." But also I like Luke 12:32, I think it is, where Jesus looked at the group of a few disciples, and He called them His "little flock." Remember that? And then you come to the Gospel of John, and you see even a broader interpretation where you see in the Gospel of John repeated reference to all of the children of God, all of God's people, those that are going to believe even in the future as His sheep, and He is the Great Shepherd.
John 10, where Jesus says, "I am the good shepherd, and the good shepherd cares for His sheep, and He knows them by name, and they follow Him, and they hear His voice, and they know it's Him, and no man's able to pluck them out of My hand," you know, and thieves and robbers try to come and steal them, but He protects them, and that whole idea of the flock concept in John 10, we are a flock. And God is the one who is our Shepherd. He's called "the good Shepherd" in John 10, in Hebrews 13, "the great Shepherd." So we are a flock under the great, good Shepherd.
The one thing I want to pull out of this flock concept, and there's all kinds of angles on it, but let me just pull this idea out. As a flock, the total church is a flock, one flock, right? One flock with one Great Shepherd. But God takes that one flock, and it's all apportioned out in local areas, right? We've got a little flock right here.
Now we're a part of the one flock, but we've been localized. That's what Peter meant when he said in 1 Peter 5:2, "Feed the flock of God among you," and he uses the Greek word en umine, which is a local term. "En" is local. He says, "Feed the flock of God, which is among you, not as those who lord it over the ones apportioned to you."
God takes the whole flock, cuts it up into little apportioned flocks, and says, "Here's an apportioned flock," and then He selects under shepherds and places them in the care of those apportioned flocks. Now that's really what I am. I'm just an under shepherd, and the elders here are under shepherds, and pastors everywhere are under shepherds.
Now we have a rather simple task in definition, although it's not simple in function. It is to do two things. "To all the flock of God over which the Holy Spirit has made you"...you see, there you have the Holy Spirit apportioning, and, incidentally, this is supported in 1 Peter 5, too. I could just point this out to you. Verse 3, "Neither as being lords over the charge allotted to you" is really what it's saying there. The word is translated "heritage," but the literal word is the segment allotted to you or apportioned to you. So we are shepherds over the flock apportioned to us.
Now verse 28 of Acts 20 says it's apportioned to us by whom? By the Holy Spirit. You know, it's an exiting thing to think about as I look at my own life and see it. Somewhere back in eternity past, when God was laying out the whole sovereign plan, He said, "Now...and, of course, He has somebody to talk to, because there's the Trinity there.
He said, "Now, about 1970, MacArthur will be ready, and We'll stick him in with that Panorama City flock, and then We'll include"...and then he...all the others that God has granted to us here to be elders of the flock. And, you know, it's a fantastic thing to realize that before the world began we were planned into this whole thing and to be a part of it. You can't believe the thrill of knowing that, being assigned as an under shepherd of Jesus Christ to take care of the flock, and the Holy Spirit did that.
Now you'll notice here that there are two responsibilities that are given to the under shepherd with the flock, and that is overseers...that's to lead...and to feed...to lead and to feed. Now there is a general word used here to feed, "poimino," which means to do all that's shepherding. It means to pastor. It's more than just the simple act of feeding. To pastor would be to care for, to discipline, to bind up their wounds, to exercise authority over them, to guide them in the right pass.
Everything and anything that could fall under the category of shepherding is included in poimino. But the heart of shepherding is to feed, because what the shepherd does most is to get the sheep to the place where they can feed. And so the heart of this is feeding, but it involves the whole concept of leading, as well, in the word poimino.
Now just to give you an illustration of the importance of feeding in relation to everything the pastor does, in John 21, and don't turn to it, Jesus is getting Peter confirmed into the ministry, and He asks him three times if he loves Him. Remember? And three times Peter confirms that he likes Him a lot, uses the word phileo, and three times Jesus says this, "Feed My lambs. Feed My sheep. Feed My sheep." One of those times, the middle time, He uses poimino. Pastor them. Do all that is needed. The first time He uses the word "bosco," not "poimino." The third time He uses the word "bosco" and not "poimino." Bosco means simply to feed them, nothing more.
Well, if two out of the three are just feed them, that kind of lets me know what the priority is, to feed them...to feed them. Feed the flock of God, and in most cases poimino is even translated that way, because that's obviously the emphasis. Sure, it includes the areas of care and discipline and authority and other things, but primarily it is feeding.
People say to me all the time, you know, and I suppose there's not a day goes by somebody doesn't say, "Oh, I was so glad to come here. I was so glad that Such-and-Such has a class. We're so glad they go to Such-and-Such's Bible study, because we're getting fed." I imagine at one time or other all of you have said that.
And people say to me, "Well, we came for Such-and-Such, and they're not feeding us," and for the life of me, I cannot conceive of a shepherd who does not feed his sheep. I don't understand that at all. I mean, what are you doing, just leading them around from desert to desert, or you just leave them in the same desert all the time? What kind of a concept of a shepherd who doesn't feed his sheep? We're to feed and lead.
Leading is important, too. What do we mean by leading? Well, we mean ruling. "The elders that rule well are worthy of double honor." What does this mean? This means selecting the direction of the church. The sheep didn't decide which field they'd go to next. The sheep didn't decide where they'd build the fold. The sheep just followed the Shepherd.
God has committed the leadership of the church into the hands of the elders and the pastors, and it says there, "We are overseers or bishops." That simply means those in authority. The Shepherd rules and leads, and the flock is in subjection. Now we're not leading...remember this now...we're not leading by dictating and dominating and lording it over you, but as examples, right?
Now in Hebrews 13:17, we have just a lovely verse that expresses the relationship between the elders and the people. Listen. "Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves." Right? You know, I just praise God for that. The great joys, of all the great joys that I have, one of them is the fact that this church, that the people are submitted to the elders and that when they decide something, there's a beautiful kind of spirit of obedience. We just don't have that kind of problem where people buck and fight and scratch against things that are decided.
This is a godly response. "Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves...listen...for they watch for your souls as they that must give account." You know, I think that most elders in most churches don't know that verse. You know, when I stop to think about the fact that I have to give an account to God Himself for how I care for the flock, and so does every other elder, that may change the way I care for the flock. I've got to give an account.
So He says, "Obey them, and submit to them, that they may do it with joy and not with grief." And, you know, every once in a while when you do get somebody who bucks it and fights and retaliates and won't submit, it's a grieving thing. Believe me, there's enough grief in ministering and fighting against Satan. There's enough grief in the anguish of the resistance that you get in the ministry without having grief from the people you're trying to love and feed. And He goes on at the end of the verse and says, "And when you do that, it's not even profitable for you, either."
In 1 Peter 5:4, you have a similar indication of the response of the people to the leadership. It says, "And when the chief shepherd shall appear, you shall receive a crown of glory that fades not away." How do you get that crown of glory? When you have led the flock as an example. There's a crown of glory for the one who is a faithful example. The flock is to be in subjection. The one who leads is to be the one responsible to God, and if he's faithful, he'll receive a crown of glory.
And so it's a question of faithfulness toward God. And you know something, when you're an unfaithful elder, and unfaithful pastor, there's a high price to pay. Did you know that 1 Timothy 5:19 says that you should never receive an accusation against a pastor or an elder unless there's two or three witnesses first-hand? How many times have we heard something about somebody from somebody who heard it from somebody and passed it to somebody else, something to accuse somebody?
Don't speak a word against God's anointed, unless it's in the mouth of two or three eyewitnesses who can confirm it. If you find that it is true, the next verse says, "The elder that sinned is to be rebuked before everybody, that others may fear." There's a high price to pay for leadership. Whatever we do is in public. If we live a holy life, that's public. If we sin, that's to be made public, too.
And we believe that it's biblical, that if elders sin, the sin is to be exposed to everybody. Why? That others may learn that we deal with sin. So it's a high price to pay, but I'll tell you, it's a great joy when you're faithful, and you see the blessing of God, and they're double honored, as 1 Timothy 5 talks about.
Just to add to the responsibility that we have, He says this. As if it isn't bad enough already to know what weight of responsibility He says, "Take heed therefore under yourselves and all the flock over which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to feed the church of God." You know what really motivates you is that this isn't my church. This isn't our church as elders. Whose church is it? It's God's church. I'm caring for His property.
Have you ever had the responsibility of caring for the property of somebody where you're just a nervous wreck hoping they'll get back before you've lost it or broken it? Sometimes I think that's the reason I'd like Christ to get here soon, just to get a hold of this deal before I've got it totally messed up. This is His church. Jesus said to Peter three times, "Feed my sheep. Feed my sheep. Feed my lambs." They're not his. They're not Peter's. They're not mine. They're His.
Listen. I love my Lord, and I want to take care of His sheep. He said to me, "MacArthur, these are My sheep. Now you take care of them until I get back." And I'll tell you, that's a motivating thing, people, to stop and think. Peter said, "Feed the flock of God." They're not mine.
Well, that's enough motive for me, but the Holy Spirit probably knew I needed any more and added this at the end of verse 28, "Which He hath purchased with His own blood." What is that saying? That's saying that that flock of God is so precious that He paid the supreme price, and if it's that precious to Him, it ought to be that precious to me, right? I mean, if God would go to the extent of doing that, I want to make sure I take care of it.
God Himself in the form of the Son shed His blood for the purpose of the church. "God paid the highest price, the precious blood of Jesus Christ," Peter says. Could I dare treat this church, which He bought with His own blood, in any less of a sense than would be commensurate with the price He paid? Could I treat the church as nothing? Could I use the church? Could I manipulate the church? Could I take advantage of the church?
Could I starve the church? Could I fail to teach the whole counsel of the church when this is what He wants, and this is what price He paid to gain the church and gave it to my care, and I should be unfaithful? It's a precious flock. You're a precious commodity. You cost a precious price. I better treat you as precious as you are.
You know, Paul did this, and again, he's our example. In Ephesians 5...listen. I'll read it. "Husbands, love your wives...listen to this...even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish."
Now listen to that. Christ loved the church, gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify it, purify it, present it as a glorious church without spot, without wrinkle, without blemish. If He wants a holy church, what should I want? A holy church.
You know, Paul wrote the Corinthians, and I mean he let them have both barrels. He absolutely unloaded on them. He unloaded on them for 16 chapters, turned around and wrote them 13 more. Twenty-nine chapters he spent on them. Now somebody was probably saying, "Well, that guy's got something against us. Why us? What's the hang-up, Paul?"
And this is what he says in 2 Corinthians 11:1, "Would to God that you would bear with me a little in my folly." I hope you'll endure what I'm doing. "Why? For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy." "What do you mean, Paul?" "I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ."
Paul says, "I know one thing. I know that God redeemed you to be a holy church and that God gave you into my care, and I'm your pastor. And I'm your under shepherd, and I've got to take care of you, and if God's will is that you be a holy church, that's what I want, too, and that's why I speak to you the way I speak."
The under shepherd must have the same attitude that the Great Shepherd has, the purity and the holiness of the church, and if the Lord wants some day to present the church to Himself without spot and without blemish, that's what I want, too, see. And in order to make that happen, I'm going to have to feed and feed and feed the flock the truths of God and lead the flock in the paths of righteousness.
Well, those two basics, the priority of being right with God and myself and feeding and leading the flock, that the flock may be presented to the Savior some day as pure as He desires it to be. Let's pray.
Father, thank You for our time. We're grateful that we can express our thoughts, the thoughts of our own hearts, in the framework of scripture. Thank You, Father, that the ministry is not just acquiescence to some historic prescription, but that it is the outpouring of the heart that's generated by the Holy Spirit and that these are not just the feelings of Paul that we're subject to, but they're the feelings of our own heart that the Spirit has taught us from within.
Father, we pray for every person in leadership in church that You would cause them to first of all be sure they are right with You, and secondly, to take the responsibility of feeding the flock the Word of God and leading them in the paths of righteousness. For every young person who someday is going to be in the position of leadership, that You would begin now to prepare their hearts to minister in the way that pleases You.
We thank You for what we've learned today and for what we shall use and see practical in our lives. In Christ's name. Amen.
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Wednesday, 17 October 2012
XCOM - Enemy Unknown 2012 - Angel of Death Trophy Achievement Guide
For this Trophy you need to have researched the Archangel Armor, which has flight capabilities.
XCOM - Enemy Unknown 2012 - Poison Control - Trophy Achievement
Hi there,
Today we have the Poison Control Trophy Achievement for XCOM - Enemy Unknown.
I've edited it quite a bit but its still lengthy, hope it helps!
NOTE: Moving your squad members even one space to the left or one space to the
right can change the whole battle as it will affect which way the aliens
will run when they see you. So this is just one, of hopefully many, tactics.
XCOM - Enemy Unknown 2012 - Wet Work Trophy Achievement
For this Trophy you need to complete a very difficult abduction mission in 5 turns or less.
It took me about 8 tries, be sure to save loads!
Any questions feel free!
Monday, 8 October 2012
Borderlands 2 Review - Guns and Loot for everyone!!
The first Borderlands game took me completely by surprise.
And to be totally honest, when I first played Borderlands I thought I was in for the usual stock-standard First Person Shooter with a select set of guns and a linear (and ultimately boring) campaign.
Boy was I wrong!!
At the time, my lack of knowledge regarding this game was actually to my benefit, and every single preconception I had about it (negative preconceptions at least) was blown away at every turn.
I discovered very quickly that 2k games' combination of a First Person Shooter and Role-playing Game ACTUALLY worked well, and even though it had been tried before…this was the first time that it was done right.
The unique cell-shaded graphical style and quirky comedy had me intrigued from the very beginning and once I unlocked my main ability to throw out a stand-alone turret (playing as Roland, the soldier class), I started to realize the sheer number of available options and strategies that the RPG dynamic truly allowed.
I must have put in at least 100 hours into the game, and it kept my interest for a very long time, and with the 4 expansion packs that were released for the game, I kept coming back for more.
Of course, that was back in 2009 and eventually I stopped playing…but the impression it left on me was certainly profound.
In 2011 Borderlands 2 was announced and the first of the 4 available classes were shown – The Gunzerker. Immediately I could see that the character classes were even more interesting than in the first game.
And thus began my wait for my next Borderlands fix. To say I was excited would be an understatement.
When I eventually received my copy of Borderlands 2 (it was delayed in South Africa, much to my shock and horror), I rushed home to power up the Xbox and eagerly inserted the disk.
As much as I wanted to start up my character and start shooting things with reckless abandon, I ended up spending a good few hours watching the introductory sequence (several times) and creating characters for all 4 classes.
The introductory cinematic alone is enough to impress. Beginning similarly to the introduction of the first Borderlands, your first instinct is that it's just more of the same. It soon became apparent though that 2k planned this all along, and it quickly turns into an action packed and informative character demonstration which helps you in your initial choice of class.
Watch the Introduction Cutscene Below
Watch the Introduction Cutscene Below
My first excursion to Pandora (The planet the game is set on) saw me only using one character, but this time I was determined to use every class on offer, and while the first game gave you some basic color choices for your character to make them your own…Borderlands 2 goes out of its way to allow you to customize your character to a much larger degree.
You can now choose many different heads / haircuts and skins for each character which are unique to their class.
Granted, this definitely isn't The Sims (and that's a good thing), but the most unique aspect of this addition is that Character customizations are now dropped by enemies as loot, or purchasable from vending machines. It's a small change, but one that should appeal to the collector in you nonetheless.
Once the game started, it became immediately clear that 2k had addressed many of the issues that players had with the first game.
The much loved CL4P-TP (or Claptrap) takes you through the beginning of the game, and keeps things fresh with a comedic approach to teaching you the basics. While in Borderlands 1 the focus was on mindless grinding for the first few levels to reach more interesting points in the game, Borderlands 2 keeps things fresh and exciting from the start by providing new enemies to fight against and showing you just how unique weapons can actually be.
This time around the weapons are even more easily distinguishable by their Manufacturer, as each manufacturers guns have different benefits. Some guns can be thrown as grenades when reloaded, while other guns have a higher rate of fire or increased elemental damage.
The brand new Bandit guns also have the largest magazine sizes of any weapon type.(2 examples are shown below)
The brand new Bandit guns also have the largest magazine sizes of any weapon type.(2 examples are shown below)
Grenades follow the same line here, and are even more unique at times. Many of the separate qualities the grenades possessed in the first game are combined to give you something special to take into battle.
Badass points are a welcome addition to the game, as any stat increases they provide are carried over to all your characters. Badass Rank replaces the previous challenge system, but instead allows you to choose the benefits from a random selection of 5 stats to increase.
Enemies are a lot more diverse and interesting in Borderlands 2, and can be even more of a challenge than in the first game.You should go in prepared to die a lot at first, but thankfully the spawn points generally take you to a close enough location to continue the battle from where you left off.
The environments are also a lot more varied than the wastelands of Borderlands 1, and now include areas covered in Ice, grassy plains, ashen landscapes and many other types of terrain.
The Main characters within the game have been far more thought out, and the combinations of particular abilities are extremely useful when playing Multiplayer.
Check out the "Borderlands 2 - An introduction by Sir Hammerlock" video below to get an overall idea of the game and what it entails.
Check out the "Borderlands 2 - An introduction by Sir Hammerlock" video below to get an overall idea of the game and what it entails.
While the game can be played single player, and is perfectly competent as a solo game, it is designed to be played as a co-op multiplayer experience (up to 4 players). Enemies will all scale to the amount of players in the team as well as the level of the players, but the guns and equipment dropped will also scale in the same way.
Some enemies are designed to be approached with 4 players in your team as well, and attempting to take down "Terramorpheus the invincible" on your own (and not with the four level 50 characters that are recommended) will only result in constant death.
The first Borderlands only really became interesting after a few hours of gameplay, and once you really had a chance to see what it had to offer you were inevitably hooked. Borderlands 2 gets you hooked from the very beginning and keeps you wanting to come back for more.
You'd be hard pressed to find a sequel that matches the improvements, innovations and addictiveness that Borderlands 2 provides.
Loads of Downloadable content is scheduled to be released in the coming months. (Including a new character to play as, new vehicles and expansions)
If you enjoy First Person Shooters, Role Playing Games…or just games in general, then this is certainly a worthwhile buy and will keep you busy for a long time to come.
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Let them make a birthday wish (or two!) with this glittery, blue, number 9 candle. Why not team with another number to make an older age?
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The Discovery Channel's annual "Shark Week" is one of the longest running events on cable television. After 25 years on the air, the weeklong series of programming dedicated solely to sharks has become an American icon. Comedian Stephen Colbert has called it his second favorite time of year.
Legend has it that it all began as an idea scribbled down on a napkin during a brainstorming meeting.
"It was over drinks, I hear," Brooke Runnette, executive producer of the series, tells Talk of the Nation guest host John Donvan. "Late at night, a bunch of the early, early employees of Discovery Channel were sitting around and, cocktail after cocktail, ... one of the napkins was pulled out. ... They were trying to think of what would be most awesome, and this was pretty good."
Runnette talks about the allure of sharks and how the "Shark Week" team keeps the shows fresh and exciting year after year.
Interview Highlights
On recent changes to 'Shark Week'
"It's really hard to keep it fresh, but there have been a couple of things happening in the last couple of years that have made it possible to make it even more fun. ...
"When I took it over, one of the things that was happening at that time ... was that the camera technology had started to get so insane, that we were able to see things literally that you had not been able to see before ... The original air jaw shot ... we didn't even capture that on film until about 2001 ... The air jaw shot is the one ... where down in South Africa, there's a specific place where great white sharks leap 15 feet out of the water to basically hit a seal as hard as a car crash. And they lift their entire bodies out of the water and do a flip like a trout jumping out of a stream."
On re-enacting shark attacks
"One of the things that I always remember is the recipe for blood ... The good recipe for blood is part corn syrup, part red food dye and chocolate syrup to make it all work together well."
On the positive attributes of sharks
"The fact that they are the top predators is actually way more important than people give credit to ... They've done studies on coral reefs ... where the alpha predator, the sharks, ... have been hunted out and fished out because they're fished for their shark fins. Those coral reef ... communities just do a sharp decline ... It's not a direct correlation that you can obviously see right away. But what happens is the mid-level predators take over. They kind of get out of whack, and the entire thing just really cascades into a failing coral reef. This is pretty well-documented science.
"So, in fact, it's really necessary that we have these top predators. ... Each shark has its own ideal food. None of them is you."
On the possibility of a week of programming featuring other animals
"Nothing really works as well. ... Not even lion week or grizzly week, either. I mean, it really is about the sharks. ... It's really about something that is so other, that ... so represents the wild that can come out of the gloom ... in an ocean, which is two-thirds of the Earth. Anywhere they want to be, they can be, and then look at you, bare its teeth and sink back into the gloom. And it's almost more terrifying than anything."
On the allure of sharks
"The proper word is 'awe' ... And we don't really feel that that often. And I think it's actually comforting — in a weird way, in a counterintuitive way — to feel like there is something bigger than you ... that could actually kill you ... It's the tornado feeling. As you stand in front of a tornado, and if it doesn't kill you, you feel that nature is bigger than you, and that's the thing that's right with the world."
This year, a giant shark showed up in Silver Spring, Maryland just outside of Washington, his huge head poking out of the headquarters of the Discovery Channel. It's more than two stories high. The gigantic great white has a name. It is called Chompy, and he's not real. But everybody knows what it means: It's the return of "Shark Week," the annual event on the Discovery Channel that is now celebrating its 25th year of bringing us captivating, educational and terrifying images of sharks in their natural habitats.
In just a moment, we're going to speak with the executive producer about what it takes to put together the programs and how to keep it relevant year after year. But first, we want to hear from you on this as well. We want to ask you: What is your favorite or most memorable "Shark Week" moment, past or present? Our number is 800-989-8255. Our email address is firstname.lastname@example.com.
Brooke Runnette is the executive producer for the Discovery Channel's "Shark Week." She joins me here in Studio 3A.
Brooke, welcome to TALK OF THE NATION.
BROOKE RUNNETTE: Thank you, John.
DONVAN: And I'm going to share with the audience that you and I were colleagues at "Nightline." We did many projects together, so we are familiar.
RUNNETTE: It's true.
DONVAN: But, to me, you're shark-related identity is a new thing. And...
RUNNETTE: I never made you dive with sharks. It's true.
DONVAN: So what is the closest you've actually physically been to a shark? Is it miles and miles, or is it pretty darn close?
RUNNETTE: It's pretty darn close, although I don't actually get in the water, I mean - and I want to. That's one of my biggest regrets about being the executive producer for all these years is - and not 25, by the way, but just a couple - is not having had time to actually get in the water myself. I totally intend to, but I may I have to take a sabbatical to do it.
DONVAN: So are you sitting on the boat, sending guys down?
RUNNETTE: Sitting on the boat, sending guys down, saying, come on, get in there.
DONVAN: So how did it start? It's 25 years ago, and when - you were just somebody home watching television. As you say, you've been doing - you've been in charge for three, four years now?
RUNNETTE: Yeah. Yeah.
DONVAN: OK. So do you have knowledge of the misty beginnings of "Shark Week?"
RUNNETTE: It was misty. It was over drinks, I hear. Late at night, a bunch of the early, early employees of Discovery Channel were sitting around, and cocktail after cocktail, it sounds like, one of the napkins was pulled out, and yeah. It's a cocktail napkin kind of idea. They were trying to think of what would be most awesome, and this was pretty good.
DONVAN: As the story is told, did they have this sense that they were really, you know, it was just another good week of programming? Or did somebody have the instinct that this was really going to be big?
RUNNETTE: By the time I heard the story...
DONVAN: Everybody was a genius.
RUNNETTE: ...everybody in the room was a genius. Yes, yes. And so I don't know what else got on the cocktail napkin that didn't make it this far. But this one, I think it's fair to say it surprised a lot of people that this is the thing that became - I mean, it is cable's longest-running stunt. It is something that really has even kind of lived, you know, had many different lives. It's something that kind of has had another new life in the past couple of years.
DONVAN: What's the new life in the last few years?
RUNNETTE: It's just gotten more ratings, higher ratings in the last couple of years, which you would think that something would sort of wind down. And, in fact, it's really hard to keep it fresh, but there have been a couple of things happening in the last couple of years that have made it possible to make it even more fun.
DONVAN: Such as?
RUNNETTE: Well, one of the things - when I took it over, one of the things that was happening at that time, and it kind of worked together with what I was hoping to do with it, was that the camera technology had started to get so insane, that we were able to see things literally that you had not been able to see before. So where the original air jaw shot, which wasn't ever...
DONVAN: Wait, define air jaw shot.
RUNNETTE: So the air jaw shot is the one that - if you've seen any of this, you've seen it. It's where - down in South Africa, there's a specific place where great white sharks leap 15 feet out of the water to basically hit a seal as hard as a car crash. And they lift their entire bodies out of the water and do a flip like a trout jumping out of a stream.
DONVAN: I'm going to interrupt you very quickly for an email from Kat, who writes: We'll never forget seeing a shark jump in the air with a seal for the first time.
RUNNETTE: Right.
DONVAN: Brooke, continue your story.
RUNNETTE: And that was - we didn't even capture that on film until about 2001. It's pretty recent. Before that, it was almost a fisherman's tale that this happens. So before, you know, Chris Fallows and a couple of teams caught it in about 2001, we had literally not seen that before.
The same sort of thing is happening now with the high-speed cameras. What we couldn't have seen before - even in sort of lower, you know, lower-speed cameras - now, when shooting at 1,000 frames per second, you can actually slow it down so that we can mark individuals. We can see - you know, you can just see the scars on an individual and say, like, oh, that must be, you know, that female is coming back from - we haven't seen her for two years. She looks like she has mating scars on her - I mean, that level of detail that we would not have been able to see on a live shark before.
DONVAN: Let's bring in Sally, who's in Thousand Oaks, California. Hi, Sally. You're on TALK OF THE NATION.
SALLY: Hi. Thanks for having me.
DONVAN: Hi. Sure.
SALLY: I just wanted to say that I love "Shark Week." I've been a fan for a long time. When I was younger, about 11 or 12, I used to keep a shark book. And I would write down a page with every species of every shark that they would talk about on "Shark Week." And when I would hear something new, I'd flip through it and write it down so that I'd have like an encyclopedia of sharks, if you will. And it really piqued my interest in nature and sharks, and especially the Galapagos Islands, when I saw the, like, horns, where the hammerhead sharks spin around and just...
RUNNETTE: Great.
SALLY: I love "Shark Week." I've been a fan for a long time.
RUNNETTE: Thank you. Great. It's fun to do.
DONVAN: Thanks, Sally, very much for your call. Brooke, is "Shark Week" good for sharks or bad for sharks?
RUNNETTE: It is good for sharks. I'll tell you why. Here's the thing about - when I sort of started doing this, I mean, there's a way in which - there are a lot of stories that we want to tell ourselves that are the campfire tales of how big were its teeth and when it bit this person, what where they doing. And we do want to hear those stories, because we want to know, just as humans always do, what's the thing you're not supposed to do. For example: Don't swim with seals when you see them.
I mean, one of the things we can do is put out that kind of information in "Shark Week" and just say, you know, OK. This was really fun to watch this show. But here's the thing that you can do to avoid shark-person interaction, which is what the trouble is. You know, any shark attacks and everything is - a lot of it is because there's so many more people in the water, and for longer times. You know, surfers will stay out there all day, surfing for hours and hours and hours.
But the other thing is it just allows us to give greater awareness. And one of the things I've been doing since I took it over was leaning more toward a conservationist idea, which is just - is not difficult because, you know, I don't need to say it directly so much as I just need to peel it back and make the shark the star.
DONVAN: But there is an argument that is made in relation to nature documentary work in general, that humans being out there in the field, period, is disruptive. Now, I know the ocean is a big thing, but do we know whether having men and women filming in the water is disruptive to the sharks, harmful to them in any way?
RUNNETTE: I mean, it is disruptive insofar as our presence in general is pretty disruptive to the planet.
RUNNETTE: I mean, I think that that...
DONVAN: You're a drop in the ocean.
RUNNETTE: I mean, I would say, well, you know, there are places where sharks are probably being habituated to certain behaviors. I mean, we know that that's true down in Stuart Coves in the Bahamas (unintelligible).
DONVAN: Meaning they're getting used to people?
RUNNETTE: Yeah. They're just getting used to people. They know that at a certain time, they can practically see the boat come in, and they know that they're probably going to get food because a tour dive is going down.
DONVAN: Let me bring in Craig from San Francisco. Hi, Craig. You're on TALK OF THE NATION.
CRAIG: Hey. How are you?
DONVAN: We're good.
CRAIG: Thanks for taking my call.
DONVAN: Sure.
CRAIG: I am an art director at Goodby, Silverstein here in San Francisco. And, you know, watching "Shark Week," I keep wondering I keep wondering how you guys are going to evolve, you know, the - not just the content, but how you shoot it. And not too long ago, I shot the Olympians for the Summer Olympics with a guy Michael Muller, and he just - he couldn't show us everything because I think he was still shooting it for you guys. But he used a high-powered strobe to capture a shark, and it looked like nothing I'd ever seen before.
RUNNETTE: It's great. It's great. It's great. It's great. It looks like the Vanity Fair shot of sharks.
CRAIG: Oh, yeah.
RUNNETTE: It's unbelievable. It's - I mean, he does amazing work. We totally - we love him, and we want to work with him more.
DONVAN: Well, I'm not quite getting the picture of what this process is.
CRAIG: I could - you want to describe - I could describe it in a nutshell. Basically, a strobe allows the photographer to really be able to manipulate the thing they're shooting and really show it in incredible detail. That's easy to do in a studio. But he actually found a way to do this underwater, and not to mention he's swimming without a cage, with the great white, with a crew. And it just blew my mind. I've never seen anything like it. You could tell by looking at it right away that this is a new tech (unintelligible).
RUNNETTE: Well, the nice thing is what he's doing with that shot is what we're talking about before, which is the shark is a superstar. He makes, with that shot, the shark a star. And that's the thing that we keep coming back to in "Shark Week," it's making sure that we just put the shark first, and the shark is the star. And all that stuff, you know, whether or not we're doing - you know, whether we say we're doing conservation stuff, that is the thing that people really respond to.
DONVAN: But does - thanks very much for your call, Craig. Does "Shark Week" make people like sharks or are terrified of them and...
RUNNETTE: Love them.
DONVAN: But isn't the terror really the hook?
RUNNETTE: It goes together. What it is, I think, is the word - the proper word is awe.
DONVAN: Awe.
RUNNETTE: And we don't really feel that that often. And I think it's actually comforting, in a weird way, in a counterintuitive way, to feel like there is something bigger than you that could actually, you know, that could actually kill you, and that yet somehow it all...
DONVAN: It's like that tornado feeling.
RUNNETTE: It's the tornado feeling. As you stand in front of a tornado, and if it doesn't kill you, you feel that nature is bigger than you, and that's the thing - that's right with the world.
DONVAN: But do your ratings depend on people being scared to death of sharks (unintelligible)?
RUNNETTE: Again, not scared to death. I don't want them to feel like they're psychotic killers, because they aren't. They're rational actors. What you should feel...
DONVAN: Are they?
RUNNETTE: Yeah. What you should feel is that if you see seals in the water, that's what they eat. They could bite you in half.
DONVAN: Go away.
RUNNETTE: They could if they wanted to. So you have to take your part in it and get out of the water if they're there.
DONVAN: Mark from Charlotte, North Carolina, you're on TALK OF THE NATION.
MARK: Yes. Hello.
DONVAN: Hi.
MARK: I'm from Charlotte, but I grew up in New Jersey. And I can always remember that "Shark Week" where they talked about the summer of terror, where all these people were killed back in, you know, the turn of the century and...
RUNNETTE: 1916. Yup.
MARK: And the thing which always surprised me was how do they all those reenactments? I mean, that was just amazing. You really felt like you were there.
RUNNETTE: They did a good job. I'll tell you - like, one of the things that's - I mean, whenever we have to do reenactment, it's...
RUNNETTE: One of the things that I always remember is the recipe for blood.
RUNNETTE: The good recipe for blood is part corn syrup, part red food dye and chocolate syrup to make it all work together well. But the - I mean, that was shot by a great production company, and they did a great job with all the acting. But, you know, yes, "Blood in the Water" was the name of the show, and that's what made me think of that.
DONVAN: You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News.
We have an email from a Gerald Thomsen, who is a professor at Stony Brook Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology. He asks this: Do you think - he points out that sharks are an important top predator in the oceans, but that many species of sharks are in decline now, if not actually endangered. Do you think "Shark Week" maintains or promotes negative values of sharks? Are positive attributes of sharks portrayed? Let's - you've already answered the first, but let's take the - are positive attributes of sharks portrayed, and what are they?
RUNNETTE: Yeah. I mean, the fact that they are the top predators is actually way more important than people give credit to. I mean, you know, apart from the fact that our primate brains can really much more easily see the metaphor of, like, what would be - you know, what would Africa be like if there were no lions? The hyenas would kind of take over, and that wouldn't necessarily be a good thing, or something like that. The same thing is true of the oceans. In any ecosystem - and they've done studies on coral reefs, where the coral reefs - where the alpha predator, the sharks are gone, have been hunted out and fished out because they're fished for their shark fins.
Those coral reef, you know, communities just do a sharp decline. And it doesn't - it isn't necessarily - it doesn't - it's not a direct correlation that you can obviously see right away. But what happens is the mid-level predators take over. They kind of get out of whack, and the entire thing just really cascades into a failing coral reef. This is pretty well-documented science. So, in fact, it's really necessary that we have these top predators. And again, you know, the things that great white sharks or, you know, each shark has its own ideal food, none of them is you.
RUNNETTE: One of the things is that, you know, people think they must be impossibly delicious, and they really aren't to a shark.
RUNNETTE: They want to eat at certain times of the year and at certain times of their lives. They want to eat certain fish. Sometimes they eat other sharks. And they always, you know, want a fatty marine mammal, sometimes.
DONVAN: Liz in Denver, Colorado, sends in an email: My family used to summer in Cape Cod, near Martha's Vineyard, where "Jaws" was filmed. Our time there always overlapped with "Shark Week." I will never forget coming home from the beach and then watching hours of Discovery Channel, captivated and terrified at what we might have been swimming with that day. It always made the vacation even more fun and exciting, although it also kept me from going into water above my head.
And Kelly writes from Gainesville, Florida: I will never forget seeing the man who was able to put sharks in a catatonic state by rubbing on their belly. Amazing.
RUNNETTE: Yes.
DONVAN: Was that your era?
RUNNETTE: Yes. Tonic immobility, they call it. You can kind of turn them upside down or rub his nose or something. I mean, it's a certain kind of - you wouldn't do it with a great white, necessarily. You could do it with a reef shark.
DONVAN: Have you considered other animal weeks? Do you do other animal weeks that are as popular?
RUNNETTE: Nothing really works as well. It is really about the shark.
DONVAN: There's not a guppy week or something like that?
RUNNETTE: No, or not even lion week or grizzly week, either. I mean, it really is about the sharks. We - you know, it's not so much about whether or not we can put together something that's kind of rah-rah, walk to the beaches and wave flags. It's really about something that is so other, that is - so represents the wild that can come out of the gloom in a, you know, in an ocean, which is two-thirds of the Earth. Anywhere they want to be, they can be, and then look at you, bare its teeth and sink back into the gloom. And it's almost more terrifying than anything.
DONVAN: And are you worried about - literally worried about running out of shark ideas? It's a fish in the water.
RUNNETTE: Yeah. No, I know. I know. Yeah. I mean, I think I...
DONVAN: Any good ideas coming down the pike?
RUNNETTE: Yes. And, actually, one of the things that's most exciting is, again, new technologies, and new technologies for figuring things out. And one of the things - I've got a show that's on tonight that's called the "Great White Highway" that features a MacArthur genius, Dr. Barbara Block, who's at Stanford University. And she just got the Rolex prize, too, for Enterprise. And she - we helped fund her to do - she was part of the big census of marine life that was basically trying to tag everything. But she's basically sending out wave gliders and buoys into the water so we can tell where they are and when. So new technology is what's doing it.
DONVAN: Brooke Runnette, thanks so much. You're the executive producer of Discovery Channel's "Shark Week." You joined us here in Studio 3A. Brooke, thanks for your time.
Tomorrow, it's TALK OF THE NATION: SCIENCE FRIDAY. Ira Flatow will be here. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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Justin Bieber
Justin Bieber was born on March 1, 1994 in Ontario, Canada to Jeremy Bieber and Pattie Mallette, who was 18 at the time. The couple never married, and Mallette raised Bieber with the help of her parents. Bieber, however, now has a close relationship with his father, as well as his younger half-siblings, Jaxon and Jasmyn.
Bieber's love for music developed at an early age, first with the drums, and then through singing and guitar playing. He performed in local talent shows and even on the streets before Mallette began posting videos of him on YouTube. It was those clips that led to his discovery by talent manager Scooter Braun, who encouraged Bieber to come to Atlanta to record music. That, in turn, led Bieber to connect with Usher, and then a record deal with Island Records in 2008.
Continuing to use online platforms like YouTube, Bieber's first songs, like "One Time" and "One Less Lonely Girl," garnered a huge fan base, and were featured on his 2009 EP, "My World." That was followed by 2010's "My World 2.0" album, which, with the song "Baby," catapulted Bieber's career to a new level. In 2011, Bieber released his first concert film, "Never Say Never," as well as a Christmas-themed album, "Under The Mistletoe." The follow year came the album "Believe," and its hits "Boyfriend" and "As Long As You Love Me." Then, in 2013, leading up to the release of his second concert movie, "Believe," Bieber released new music weekly, eventually putting out the "Journals" compilation.
He is currently believed to be working on a new album, though it's unclear if it will be released in 2015. The star's personal life remains a popular topic, particularly his on-and-off relationship with Selena Gomez and his various runs-in with the law, including arrests in both the United States and Canada.
Justin Bieber, Hailey Baldwin Breaking Up?
August 13th, 2018
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July 21st, 2018


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Getting an early chance to see small-school LeFlore County hoops
I've been blessed for the past 10 days in seeing three of the smaller school in Leflore County boys basketball teams play. I have seen Cameron, Wister and Leflore play. I believe that any one of these three schools could be a major player in the 2012 Leflore County Tournament.Spiro, Heavener, Talihina and Poteau had better be on watch for any of these three as they could claim the title. I saw Cameron defeat Wister by a point, but I believe that the Savages might be the sleeper in the tournament.I believe that any team is going to be hard pressed to match the Savages' skill level, but if any of the larger schools are going to have an advantage it would have to be in the speed, quickness and agility level.If the seedings fall right, I am going to make a bold prediction that at least two of those three teams will make it to the final four — and here is an even bolder prediction, one of those three teams will win the championship.


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The Seattle Mariners will interview A's bench coach Chip Hale about their open managerial job later this morning.
Multiple baseball sources confirmed that Hale, who was one of the finalists for the job the last time it was open in the fall of 2010, will meet Mariners' general manager Jack Zduriencik. The two men will meet in Phoenix, Zduriencik, coming down from Seattle and Hale coming up from his home in the Tucson area.
It will be a familiar conversation. When the club was in the process of hiring a manager in 2008, a job that ultimately went to Don Wakamatsu, Hale was interviewed and Mariners officials came out of the interview process full of praise for Hale, who has been the bench coach in Oakland under Bob Melvin the last two seasons, both of which have seen the A's win the American League West title.
That feeling hasn't dimmed in the past three years, and Hale would have to be considered one of the favorites for the job the second time around, although it would be surprising if Zduriencik and his crew didn't take a long look at Robby Thompson, the former Giants second baseman who has been bench coach in Seattle under Wedge the last two years.
The Mariners were in Oakland in late September when Wedge announced he would not be returning for a fourth season, and at the time Melvin, himself a manager in Seattle in 2003-04, suggested Hale would be a good fit for the Mariners.
"You never want to lose anybody as talented as he is," Melvin said in September. "But he's paid his dues and he's ready for a big league job. Seattle would be a great spot for Chip. I know they liked him the last time they went through this process."
Hale was the third base coach and infield coach for the Mets in 2010-11 before joining Melvin in Oakland. He worked as the third base coach and infield coach with the Diamondbacks in 2007-09, also under Melvin.
Before that he'd managed in the Diamondbacks' minor league system for six seasons, winning titles in 2006 with Pacific Coast League Tucson (Triple-A) and 2002 with Texas League El Paso (Double-A). He was the Pioneer League (Class A) Manager of the Year in 2001 with Missoula.


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"Punishment" is not in your cat's vocabulary. Positive reinforcement of good behavior -- with treats, attention and verbal praise -- solves most kitty behavioral problems.read more
There's almost nothing worse than finding your cat has left behind a little surprise someplace other than her litter box. Here's how to fix the potty problems your cat might be having.more
Don't leave your furry feline friend behind the next time your family hits the road. Use these five easy tips to make traveling with your cat a snap.more
Is your cat always in your closet? Does she knock over plants and bother you at night? Your home could be dullsville for your feline, but it may only require simple changes.more
The Daily Cat's most requested topic is how to solve cat litter box problems. You asked and we listened. Here are ways to prevent litter box misses, kitty carpet messes and much more.more
Does your cat ever meow, or even scream, to the point where you desire a quieter kitty? All it takes are some gentle techniques to hush your cat.more
Cats reach full skeletal development when they are this old:


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Fallen_Horse wrote:No rounding!
I'm doing 5/3/1 with custom assistance (so not following a template for assistance). The last month I was rehabbing my groin that's why the reps were so high/low weight. I went back started with the bar for sets of 25 to flush as much blood through the area as possible and actively stretch it. Then just added 5kg a day about 5 times a week gradually reducing the reps till I was ready to start again.Fallen_Horse wrote:Also, are you following a well-known plan right now, or are you doing a custom routine? I haven't heard of many plans that go up to 15 rep sets for squats. That sounds interesting!


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What to do when your dad's dead or out of your life, plus the making of men, and a question about exhibiting manhood as a "nice guy." Featured musical artist: Vertical Church
[23:59] -
It's Father's Day weekend, and thus a great time to honor our dads. But what if your dad is no longer living? Or what if he's alive but out of the picture? This week's panel reflects on what it means to miss the presence of a father in our lives. We talk about how we cope, how we compensate, what regrets and frustrations we have, and our advice for those of you who still have Dad around.
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Being a man today is no easy task. You're belittled, dismissed and blamed for a whole host of problems, real and imagined. Good thing there are still folks out there who know the importance of men; Byron Yawn is one of them. In his book What Every Man Wishes His Father Had Told Him, Yawn not only builds a case for why men are indispensable, but shows men (especially you younger dudes) what he recommends for getting your manhood on track according to the Bible. Get a preview in this week's interview.
[4:59] -
He wants to live out biblical manhood, but as a "nice guy" he's running up against some opposition. Is it possible to be a sensitive man and still be masculine, bold and true to God's design? How can milder men show that they are warriors in the things that matter? Counselor Glenn Lutjens is on hand with some insight.
Helping young adults mature in Christ and prepare for marriage and family. Learn more
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You can learn a lot about a company and its strategy by paying attention to its marketing signage. This was especially true at APC 2011, where some 2000 HP partners gathered in Las Vegas to hear about how its cloud strategy and WebOS are going to rock their worlds.
HP's 'Everybody On' global marketing campaign, launched in February and supported by an integrated marketing campaign featuring print, broadcast, online and social media, highlights the transformational impact that smartphones, tablets, PCs and cloud services are exerting on human society. Oh, and also how HP technology is right there at the forefront of the revolution.